Yeah. I have a rather mercurial mind and a commute that's not long enough to bother with reading. So if something doesn't grab me and hold my attention right off the bat, I'll move on to something that does.
My mood also plays a part too.
I'm the same way this music. I own several CD's I haven't listened to yet.

Generally, no. Hmm, well, almost with no exceptions, "no". But I do tend to read non-fiction books in portions and as a result, I usually have a few that I'm concurrently reading. But almost never is this the case with fiction. I tend to read novels in one, two, or three big successive chunks. For example, I'm halfway through a novel I started yesterday and I'll likely finish it tonight.

Yes I do. Basically I follow the same pattern as kmellis: I always have a few non-fiction books on the go, (infrequently) interspersed with fiction. Also, once I start a novel, I have to finish it, no matter how bad it is. I'm the same with movies. It somehow seems like more of a waste of life to only read/watch part of a crappy piece of work.

Yep, only 2 or 3 at a time though. Usually I read books that I own a lot slower, and when I borrow books (library, people) I put the owned book aside to read those.

Yeah, I've usually got a novel and one or two nonfiction books going at the same time, plus stacks of back issues of the New Yorker. They're all on my bedside table right now, just sitting there, reproachfully...

Yes, I do. I have super peripatetic grazy reading habits.

I just spent a hunnit bucks on books. They're at home, or I'd tell you titles. They're a SEEECRET!

I go in phases. This year I've had a handful of books going at any one time, but in the past I've been very directed at finishing one book before I start another.

No. When it comes to reading, I'm a gulper, not a grazer.

Unless I’m hijacked by one of those rare books that sucks me in and won’t let me go, I usually have 2 or 3 books going at once - something fun, something intense, and a comfort book. Right now I’m exhausted because I accidentally fell into a book last night and didn’t realize how long I’d been reading until my alarm went off this morning and I had to get dressed.

Yeah, I'll usually be reading one thing/series on my PDA during commute and a dead-tree book when I'm at home.

What everybody else said, with a double helping of scifi.

20 years ago I never had fewer than 5-7 books "in progress" at any one time. The last 10 years though the internet has really suppressed my book reading and I'm regretting it.

Yes. Usually about 4 or 5 at a time, plus assorted magazines. They usually get read in whatever room they are in (or on-the-go if in the bag). I am often lured into unfaithfulness by a fresh new book and completely abandon whatever I was reading before.

Generally no. I tend to be pretty methodical. When the Peter Weir movie "The Far Side of the World" came out, my friends who had read the novels told me I had to read the series. One had the entire series. So I read the series, in order. It took about three weeks.

I do like to read the same book over and over. I've read most of Barbara Tuchman's books several times, particularly "The Proud Tower" and "The Guns of August." I've also read Winston Churchill's history of WWII at least four times. R.V. Jones' "The Wizard War" four or five times. Most of Pynchon's first three novels several times. The complete Sherlock Holmes canon many times, likewise Dashiel Hammett and Raymond Chandler.

I read a lot of history. A lot of WWII espionage and cryptography history, history of warfare, modern terrorism and right-wing studies, history of science (the entire series of ISIS edited by Georges Sarton.)

I've currently been reading books written in the 40's on machine shop practice. That was pretty much the peak of craft machinist work.

When I was in Junior High School, I was bored at school and discovered I could get out of study hall to go to the library. So I read twenty years worth of Scientific American during study hall and after lunch. When I was in grade school I read the entire 1924 Book of Knowledge encyclopedia (and can still find articles in there from memory.)

George Seldes "Witness to a Century" is good reading over and over again. So is Scott Buchanan's "So Reason Can Rule."

I could go on, but that's probably too much already. I really like books.

Pre-internet/college: No, since I read books too fast to have more than one (usually, a short novel every 2 days).

Now: Yes, since I only read when I'm procrastinating from doing work that involves my computer. Then, I'll just pick up whichever of the 2 or 3 books is closest. (This could also be due to the fact that my friend keeps unloading SERIOUSLY LONG books on me - I'm talking Pynchon and Rushdie - these books take FOREVER).

I usually read two or three at once: recently I’ve had a bus book that I read on my short commute, and one or two bedside books. At the moment it’s War and War by László Krasznahorkai and a book on Art, Science, and Witchcraft in Early Modern Holland.

Yes, the bathroom, the bathtub (tossed over the edge when I'm ready to soap up),bedside, backpack...but then I'm a Gemini.

No, one at a time... but then I'm a Gemini.

One at a time is the rule for me. I also like to devour fiction books rather than nibble away at them - a gourmand rather than a gourmet, you might say. I am another who, once I have started reading something, must. finish. it. no matter how awful it is. I think it is the internal optimist in me struggling to get out - I keep thinking it has to get better, right to the last page. It helps that I can read pretty fast, so the time taken to read a lightweight fiction book isn't that much of an investment.

I will read and re-read books that I enjoy, though - most of the books I own I have read at lest 5 or 6 times, probably more. I do, however, own books that I have never got around to reading.

The kmellis/nomis reading pattern is the one I most often find myself in.

The reason I ask is because I used to read one at a time and then I started skipping around in the last year or so. But I think it makes my ADD worse b/c I always have to back up a page or two between readings to remember where I was. I'm a slow reader which doesn't help. Maybe I thought by reading 3 books at once, I could make headway into the billions of things I want to read more quickly. Except I can't retain as much. My brain is more skippy since I started switching books mid completion.

I think I'm going back to one at a time after I finish these 3 I'm working on. Before when I read 1 at a time I became more absorbed in the book. Now, I'm afraid if I get absorbed, I won't be able to switch over as quickly to the other ones. Maybe I need that time travel machine so I can make more me's to read 1 at a time, but each as dedicatedly.

I have literally a push-down stack of books on my nightstand. Right now, it looks like this:

# The Desert Fathers - Helen Waddell
# Wherever you go, there you are - Jon Kabat-Zinn
# Quicksilver: Volume One of The Baroque Cycle - Neal Stephenson

I suspect I may never finish Quicksilver. And I was just in NYC and stocked up at the Strand.

that's funny tommasz - I have been reading Quicksilver for a couple of months now and I usually take only 2 or 3 days to finish books of that length.

But like dg, I never (except once) leave a book unfinished. The exception was Stiller - Max Frisch. I just couldn't bring myself to care.

Yes, all the time, several at a time.

I usually have a couple of books going on my night stand and another that I carry in my bag. I have to have a book with me at all times.

I occasionally read more than a book at a time, but mostly not, because I love to totally immerse myself in a book. Nothing else - no film, song (or album) or play (or opera, etc.) - ever totally claims me the way reading a good book does. And I adore reading a (good) trilogy or any series back to back. Books are like drugs to me, and a good read is like a good high - I never want it to end.

If I do find myself reading more than one book at a time, it's because none of them alone are good enough to really warrant my usual concentration of luuuuuurve, and I'm really reading out of desperation. As in love and relationships, I would instantly drop any one of the "desperation books" for one that I could really respect. ;) Also, I read really quickly, so most "normal-size" books are like hors d'oevres to me, and excellent, long, meaty books are like life's blood.

I hate to read in short spurts, so I carry crosswords and sudoku puzzles in my bag for unexpected long lines or smallish bus trips, etc.

Do you guys think about them in between reading spurts? Do you think about them only after you've finished? Do you think about any of them for years later?

All the time, but like kmellis I mostly power through fiction and dip in and out of non-fiction. I usually have three or four going at a time. I think about some of them forever and some of them not at all. I would say I have a rotating cast of about 10% of my library that I am rereading all the time as well. I read very fast and while I don't miss a bunch I can usually find several things that I didn't notice on the first pass if a book is sufficiently complicated.

Yeah, I love to sink into a book or a series of books, but life tends to get in the way these days.

Sometimes, but never more than three at a time.